About

RickB- Human, Artist, Fool.

Ynys Mon, UK.

The blog is called ten percent because of what Kurt Vonnegut wrote when remembering Susan Sontag - She was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.-

And I'm writing it because I need the therapy and I lust for world domination.

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Of Badgers & Men (& Censorship)

20 April, 2010 — RickB

The reason for my blog being censored by WordPress was because of a post about ‘Sir’ Howard Newby, I have not been told this in an email or any such civilised notification but I found the post had been altered by WP admin and was the source of me being barred from my own blog. If you want some background on ‘Sir’ Howard check out Derek Wall, Ecologics & Bristle’s Blog from the BunKRS. It appears he is very sensitive about his time as vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England and the firm Carter & Carter of which he was a non-executive director, all of which is in the public sphere in various publications, for example this is from the Guardian–

“They were private companies with no idea about university or academe telling us how to do things and what to do. People got upset because he was running the university life a little fiefdom and giving very big contracts to his mates,” said one academic, who preferred not to be named.

Such big publications with deep pockets were apparently not troubled but he had the University of Liverpool’s (where he is now Vice-Chancellor) legal department in the guise of one Mr. Kevan Ryan, Director of Legal Services go after the low lying blog fruit, which also caught the attention of Index on Censorship. This pushed my anti-censorship button and I made a humorous post that largely concerned itself with how trustworthy ‘Sir’ Howard was in regards to his moral conduct with badgers. But apparently WordPress err on the side of extreme caution when a lawyer and the UK’s libel laws hove into view (or maybe it was something to do with badgers, you never can tell). Consequently I realised I had to find other hosting arrangements for my blog if I am to be independent of people that do not value free speech or my own brand of what we shall loosely call ‘wit’. This has taken some time which is all down to my own procrastination but as we speak, thanks to the generous help of a friend of the blog, a new site is being prepared that is hosted in a far off land, details to come soon. If this post causes another act of censorship please refer to my Twitter feed for updates.

Yes………….the Badgers are indeed identified with the University of Wisconsin. The university is most proud of their football (not soccer) team that strives for dominance in the Big Ten Conference. This past year they lost three games, which in American football, means that 11 big men on the offense and 11 bigger men on defense had their way with you. (times three!!) Sometimes, even when a badger strives for dominance, they end up on the bottom.

Wisconsin, hmm, brings to mind a Tom Waits lyric –
‘Wisconsin hiker with a cue-ball head. Wishin’ he’s home in a Wisconsin bed’

No mention of badgers in that song though.
Now moving the blog, you can move it all but WP have a 2MB limit on the xml file my blog is now 27MB, so magical hosting peeps got going on it and most of the blog is now duplicated and with comments but there are some missing, so glitch ironing to be done. This blog will stay up but with notice to go to the new one which from a certain date will become the live blog and this one will cease to have new posts put on, I was hoping to make that May 1st but we shall have to see. I was pondering to pay for a year of forwarding so people coming here automatically are sent to the new site, advice on that seems mixed so I am open to votes/suggestions.

Hey Bristle, I seem to have been collateral damage, WP just froze my blog then when I rattled the cage via the forum they relented. Of course this means form now on ‘Sir’ Howard will be the patron saint of Badgers and anti-censorship to Ten Percent, his career will be followed with interest.